analyze-demand

Analyze Demand

For a defined industry, produce a structural demand-side analysis. Output: demand.md that names the JOB the industry's customers are hiring solutions to perform, segments by that job (not demographics), and surfaces substitution risk before it shows in share data.

The discipline: Demand-side analysis is the early-warning system for disruption. Five Forces tells you the structure; profit pools tell you where the money sits today; competitive arena tells you who is winning. Demand analysis tells you whether the question being asked is about to change. JTBD originated in product design; at industry-analysis level it aggregates outcomes across the buyer population to spot cross-category substitution before market-share data moves.

Iron rules:

• Every fact-claim carries a V/C/A/I tag — see ../_shared/provenance-tagging.md.
• ≥1 JTBD identified with ALL THREE components (functional / emotional / social) named — even if a component is "minimal" or "absent," state it explicitly. Do not omit.
• ≥2 customer segments defined by the job they hire the product to do, not by demographic or firmographic attributes. "Young urban professionals" or "mid-market SaaS companies" fail this test; "buyers hiring the product to reduce time-to-decision in regulatory submissions" passes.
• ≥1 substitution risk with named substitute candidate (cross-category preferred), explicit switching cost, and stated likelihood. Naming "general competition" or "other vendors" fails.
• Substitution analysis section MUST use the standard heading ## Substitution Risk (exact wording, level-2 heading). Downstream consumers parse by heading; variants fail.
• WTP drivers stated per segment — NOT a single price. Drivers explain WHY this segment will or won't pay.
• ≥1 named demand signal with a measurable leading indicator (search trend, channel check, expert-interview language shift, regulatory filing shift, etc.). Lagging metrics like revenue fail.

Process

1. Intake — lock the analysis frame

Confirm: industry slug, geographic scope, B2B / B2C / hybrid, focal value-chain layer (must match the layer used in map-five-forces if running in orchestrator mode), buying-unit definition (individual / household / SMB / enterprise procurement committee). Read references/jtbd-methodology.md and references/customer-segmentation.md. Note any substitution threats already flagged in working/five-forces.md (orchestrator mode) — they are the priority candidates to chase in step 4.